Analysis of heavy and light chain sequences of conventional camelid antibodies from Camelus dromedarius and Camelus bactrianus species.

Camel antibodies have been widely investigated, but work has focused upon the unique heavy chain antibodies found across camelid species. These are homodimers, devoid of light chains and the first constant heavy chain domain. Camelid species also display conventional hetero-tetrameric antibodies with identical pairs of heavy and light chains; in Camelus dromedarius these constitute 25% of circulating antibodies.

The rapid generation of recombinant functional monoclonal antibodies from individual, antigen-specific bone marrow-derived plasma cells isolated using a novel fluorescence-based method.

Single B cell technologies, which avoid traditional hybridoma fusion and combinatorial display, provide a means to interrogate the naturally-selected antibody repertoire of immunized animals. Many methods enable the sampling of memory B cell subsets, but few allow for the direct interrogation of the plasma cell repertoire, i.e.